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Bird Flu Is Wiping Out the City’s Duck Supply
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The Crescent Duck Farm on Long Island’s north fork is 117 years old, the last of the island’s duck farms — a region that was once the duck capital of the country — and the supplier that many of the city’s top chefs use for their own duck dishes. “Especially, for me, and I had a restaurant called Ducks, everything else became unusable,” says the chef Will Horowitz. “It got to the point where, if we couldn’t get it from them, we just wouldn’t serve duck. There was nothing else we could use.” But now, Crescent’s future is in jeopardy. As the RiverheadLocal reported this week, a bird-flu outbreak had forced Crescent to shut down operations, and its owner, Doug Corwin, must cull his entire flock of nearly 100,000 ducks.
The Suffolk County Health Department says that the risk to public health is “minimal,” but the outbreak is devastating for the farm and the many restaurants they supply. Corwin explained to RiverheadLocal that the next step to recovery is months of cleaning followed by, essentially, starting over completely. That process is not nearly as simple as getting a few ducks: Crescent’s reputation is built on the genes of its ducks specifically, which have been bred over generations to grow birds that are meaty but not overly fatty.
There are other duck producers in the area, but Crescent is the preferred option for any number of restaurateurs. “I think they have an exceptional product,” says Karina García, who serves Crescent’s duck draped with mole negro at Cocina Consuelo in Washington Heights. Other brands she tried, she says, just couldn’t compare. “Not only that, but the fact that they are family owned, it’s a tremendous achievement. We are truly devastated by the news.”
Restaurants like Bowery Meat Company, Gabriel Kreuther, Junoon, Soogil, and Le Jardinier have all served it. Jean-Georges Vongerichten has used it. Daniel Boulud is a fan, too, and it was while working for him that the chef Emily Yuen first cooked Crescent duck. Now, she serves it at Lingo in Greenpoint. There, she confits the legs for a katsu and dry-ages the breast. “I tried other duck breasts from other companies, and this one just had that perfect meat-to-fat ratio,” she says. “It just makes a really crispy skin, and the duck is always juicy. Once I used it, I didn’t sway away from it.”
There is hope that Crescent can continue, but it will take a long time to get back to business as usual. Corwin told RiverheadLocal that Crescent still has eggs laid from before the outbreak and that the state government is working with the farm to preserve genetic material. “That might be the basis of being able to start up again —might, might,” Corwin told the site. “I can’t say that yet because — I’m talking like a year or two down the road.”
Horowitz, who says he grew up with and “went to the same podunk bar” as Corwin’s sons Blake and Pierce (who also run Crescent), says that he hopes city chefs rally around the Corwins: “They’re the only game in town, and they’re motivated. They really take their practice seriously. They’ve spent God knows how much money,” he explains. “They’re incredible, and the whole thing is so fucking heartbreaking.”
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